


Samwell Gentlemen's Hockey

by akadiene



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Age Changes, Alternate Universe - Beer League, Classic Sitcom Tropes, F/M, Humor, I hope, M/M, Marijuana, Teen Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-12
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2018-08-21 23:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8265040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akadiene/pseuds/akadiene
Summary: Jack agreed to host a hockey tournament in March, but he's got no team and Dex has no patience. Bitty's new in town and Nursey isn't but might as well be. Ransom and Holster are trying to make the perfect dad joke, and Chowder's just trying his best. Lardo's got a bar to run, boys, and Shitty? Well, don't look now, but Shitty's naked. Welcome to Samwell Gentlemen's Hockey.





	1. The Pilot

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! I've been talking and talking about this AU and I finally have it fully outlined and ready to get WRITTEN. Fuck yeah.
> 
> A bit of context, before we begin the journey: this is set in present-day Samwell, Massachussetts, but our heroes are all about twenty years older than they are in the comic. Jack is 44, and all other age differences are staggered the same way as in the comic, making Holster 42, Shitty 41, etc. Only a few ever went to Samwell U, having all chosen different paths in life than the one N gave them. 
> 
> This is outlined for ten chapters. I'll try to stick to a semi-regular posting schedule, but... we'll see.
> 
> A million thanks to [audiaphilios](www.audiaphilios.tumblr.com) and [dadbob](www.dadbob.tumblr.com) for the brain-picking and beta-ing, and to [bad-jokes-420](www.bad-jokes-420.tumblr.com) for all the cheerleading and brainstorming.
> 
> My tumblr is over at [batlardo](www.batlardo.tumblr.com), feel free to give me a holler over there!

“You did _what_.”

Okay, so Dex is mad. Jack should have expected that, probably. It wasn’t that it was an impulsive decision, because Jack doesn’t make impulsive decisions. Or, he doesn’t anymore. It was well thought out, he weighed the pros and cons, he pondered, he --

“What made you say yes,” Dex says. He crosses his arms.

“Uh. I don’t know.” Jack says. “I thought it would be fun.”

Dex sighs and sits with a thump at his desk, his elbows scattering the loose pages on it.

“You should get a paperweight,” Jack says lightly.

The early morning sun filters in through the office’s windows, illuminating the cracks in the old walls that enclose the space. The sound system is playing Abba in the background, and when Jack looks out at the rink below, he sees the Sunday crew of figure skaters doing their drills. Dex exhales again and rubs the heels of his palm in his eyes. “Jack, you have never done anything for fun in your life,” he says. “Why the fuck are you starting now.”

“Um.”

“Right, of course. _Um._ Have you thought this through like, logistically? I mean, have you seen this place? It’s falling apart.”

Jack shifts from foot to foot. He’s a grown man. He shouldn’t feel this intimidated by Dex, or by anyone at all. Right. “I thought we could maybe ask Faber to help out?”

“That weekend they’re hosting Frozen On Ice. And anyway, who the fuck would pay for that?”

“But all ice is frozen,” Jack says, mostly to himself. Dex continues.

“I’m only one guy here, Jack. Why couldn’t Portland take it again this year?”

“Um, they’re--”

“Who’s going to fund this? The zamboni needs gas, you know. I know you’re Mister Money Bags over here but this rink isn’t exactly flooded with money.”

Jack grins weakly. “Ha, flooded. Good one.”

“And how many teams are we talking? Do you have a committee in place to organize this? Are you going to tell the figure skaters they can’t use the ice that weekend? Those moms are scary, man. What about our hospitality suite? I don’t think the liquor license has been renewed in five years. Is there enough parking? I think there’s a leak in the ceiling by the canteen. And our score board’s number sixes look like fives. Did you think of all this, Jack? Huh?”

Dex finally stops talking, his hands stopping their wild gesturing, and Jack doesn’t know what to say.

“I’ll help,” he settles on. “And Shitty--”

“Is this your mid-life crisis? Is that what this is?” Dex says. “Because I’m too young to have a second-hand crisis.”

“You’re thirty-eight. And it’s not a crisis, it’s a hockey tournament. Anyway, I think I’ve already had enough crises in my life. I’ve reached my quota.”

Dex pulls out a calendar from underneath a stack of what are probably bills. “I don’t think crises care whether or not you’ve had them before. I think that’s like, the definition of a crisis.”

“Crisis, crisis, crisis,” Jack says. “Anyway, I’ll help, I will. Just tell me what to do.”

“Okay. Fuck, okay. Fine. First, we need a team.”

Shit, right. That’s like, an important part of the plan Jack hadn’t considered.

“Will you play?” Jack asks. Dex rolls his eyes.

“Guess I have to.”

Take A Chance On Me begins to play and Dex taps his fingers to the beat. The calendar, with a pin-up girl in a witch’s hat and not much else sitting on a motorcycle smiling up at Jack, has an X marked off on each day up until October 10th. The New England Gentlemen’s Hockey Tournament is scheduled, whether Dex likes it or not, for March 20th at the Samwell Regional Arena.

“Yes,” Jack says. “Alright. A team. I’m going to find us a team.”

_X_

There’s something to be said about sleeping in on a Sunday when you’ve got kids, Adam thinks, and it’s this: it’s fucking impossible. The twins have been up since seven -- or actually, Gaby has, and she woke Jacob about five minutes after deciding she couldn’t keep still, if he knows her well. His alarm clock says it’s just about eight, and after waiting around doing God knows what, Gaby seems to have decided Adam needs to be up _now_.

She runs into his room with all her nine-year-old enthusiasm, already fully dressed in an outfit that would appall her mother and scandalize her Uncle R: her favourite Bruins jersey, a purple polka-dotted skirt and yellow knee-high socks to complete it. Jacob trails behind in respectable blue pyjamas.

“Daddy, get up,” she says imperiously, jumping onto the bed. He pretends to snore loudly, which makes Jacob giggle. “Come on. Move your carcass.”

He can’t help the laugh that bursts through his mouth as he sits up and kisses her curls. “Please don’t ever tell Mommy that, Gabrielle,” he says. “Or anyone else but me, actually.”

“Course not. Now get a move on. We made breakfast for you.”

“Eggos in the toaster?” he asks. Jake nods solemnly. “Thank you. Don’t forget it’s your turn to choose what we do today, Jake.”

Gaby hops off the bed and readjusts her jersey. “He wants to go to the library.”

“Let him speak for himself.”

She frowns, but Jake just shrugs. “I do,” he says. “Can I -- can you call Fatou, please?”

Once Adam’s up, dressed, shaved, and has tripped over a miniature hockey net, some balls and a neon pink stick surrounded by boards made of stacks of books and building blocks which must have been set up in the hallway sometime between Gaby’s waking and now, he makes his way to the kitchen for breakfast.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” he says, sitting down at the table where one of them have set up a plate for him with the waffles and some syrup and a glass of orange juice on the side. “Jacob Birkholtz, you make a darn good Eggo.”

Gaby and Jake smile the same smile from where they sit across from him. Once he’s done, he holds out his hand, and Gaby presses his phone in his hand, because he knows she’s been waiting to do just that, and punches in his number one on speed-dial.

The phone rings twice before Ransom picks up.

“Hello Uncle R,” Adam says, “you’re on speaker.”

“Hey Uncle H, I’m glad I caught you.” Ransom sounds stressed.

“I called _you_. Is everything alright?”

Gaby, from where’s she standing next to him, rolls her eyes. “Uncle R,” she says. “Please don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah. I had to go into the hospital though,” Ransom says. “Everything’s fine, just had an appointment for some stomach ulcers this morning.”

“Daddy,” Jacob says, a warning evident in his tone.

“Hope you’re okay, man.” Adam grins. “Oh, did I tell you I’m going to be on the news tomorrow?”

“That’s so cool! What time?”

Gaby grabs the phone and pulls it closer to her. “That’s enough,” she says. “We get it. You’re a doctor, Daddy’s a news anchor. It’s not going to get any funnier the more you make that joke.”

Ransom gasps on the other end. “You wound me.”

“Good thing you’re at a hospital then,” she says. Not for the first time, Adam wonders where she came from. Then he remembers. Right, him. And Kelly too, come to think of it, has an altogether too firm grasp of the dramatic. “Can Fatou come to the library with us?

“I’m sure she’d love to. She’s at home with Auntie M,” Ransom says. “Stop by on your way. Hey, Holster, I actually just got a call from Jack.”

“Jack? Haven’t heard from him in nearly a year. Not since our last scrimmage, anyway.”

The twins run off, presumably so Jacob can get dressed and Gaby can shoot some more foam pucks into her net, and Adam takes the phone off speaker and brings it up to his ear.

“Yeah, that’s what it was about. He wants to get a team together again. Apparently agreed to host a tournament in March.”

“Ha, March. You gonna play?” Adam asks. He’s pretty sure he knows the answer.

“Only if you wanna.”

“Definitely. Gonna be so awesome.”

“Sw’awesome,” Ransom repeats. Adam laughs. It sounds good.

_X_

Shitty Knight is having a good morning.

He rose with the sun, fully naked, next to Lardo, also fully naked. After his customary breakfast of an extra-large mug of his fair-trade organic coffee and a bowl of fruit loops, best enjoyed while unclothed, he joined Lardo in their meditation room for their daily morning Tai Chi in the nude. Bare as the day he was born, he drank his second cup of coffee while reading the Globe and doing the crossword at the kitchen table, a pillow placed under his ass so he wouldn’t stick to the wood of the chair while Lardo went back to bed.

The only blight in his day so far happened a minute ago, when someone knocked on his door and he had to get up and pull on the bathrobe he keeps in the kitchen for such an occasion. Really, if he had known who it was, he wouldn’t have bothered.

“Jack!” he cries once he opens the door and sees his very favourite Canadian. Well, second favourite, after Jack’s father, probably. Actually, third. He’s been reading a lot of Margaret Atwood recently. Shit, and there’s David Suzuki. And he wouldn’t say no to Ryan Reynolds or Tatiana Maslany if they asked. Oh, Alex Trebek, he seems like a solid dude. And --

“Uh, Shitty?”

He shakes himself. “Jacky, my boy. What can I do for you on this fine morning? Not that I’m not happy just to chat with you, but it is nine am on a Sunday and I’ve got a standing appointment with with my domestic-partner-love-of-my-life for sex in half an hour and while Lardo and I have already agreed on this and you’re very welcome to join, don’t you have papers to correct? Oh, speaking of, what’s a nine-letter word for ‘narrating the lives of saints’?”

Jack blinks. “Hagiology. Look -- ”

“Oh, thanks dude. You know I try to avoid using the internet for those when I can. Gotta keep my brain muscles exercised, you know?”

“Right. Uh. Listen, man --”

“Shit, sorry, Jack. Do you want to come in? I’ve got a pot of coffee made. It’s like half an hour old but it’s still hot.”

“Shitty!” Jack’s eyes are wide as he puts his hands up. Shitty shuts his mouth with an audible snap. “Do you want to play hockey? There’s this tournament and I’ve--”

“Brah.” Shitty opens his arms wide and his bathrobe falls open. “Stop right there. I would be delighted.”

Shitty Knight is having a _great_ fucking morning.

_X_

The classroom is almost too small for twenty-five nine-year-olds and an enthusiastic teacher, but it’s colourful and homey and welcoming, and Chris is proud of it. Really darn proud, actually, and he’s pretty sure it shows as he gives the new school nutritionist, Eric Bittle, the grand tour of the school. Caitlin’s got the gym, which makes her automatically popular with the kids, and her office too, made as comfortable as possible, but Chris has bookshelves and puppets and a hammock for reading in one corner and tiny little desks and toys and cubbies and… He just really loves his classroom.

“And this is where I sit!” he says, gesturing to the desk at the side of the room, piled high with papers and covered in crayons and mugs and tape and paperclips and sharpeners.

“I see that,” Eric says with a laugh. Chris likes him a lot too, so far. He smiles all the time and has a southern accent and seems genuinely interested in Chris’ teacher gossip and stories about kids and methods of teaching. Of course, Eric won’t be teaching, but Chris thinks maybe he could ask him to do a few workshops on measuring amounts and following directions… They could make play-dough, maybe. Or cookies. Oatmeal cookies, to be a bit healthier.

“Do kids eat raisins?” Chris asks. Eric laughs again. “Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about cookies.”

“If I made them, the kids would eat them,” he says. Chris smiles. He likes it when he doesn’t have to explain himself to people. Sometimes his brain goes too fast and people can’t keep up. It’s fine though, because he’s got Caitlin who understands him and the kids who think like that too. They tell him he’s a good teacher, and he’s happy about that, because he got a late start, only completing his Bachelor of Education four years ago, after a decade of working in IT and hearing Caitlin talk about her job like it was the best thing in the world. Teaching’s difficult and exhausting and often frustrating, but rewarding and _fun_ , he decides.

He beams at Eric. What were they talking about? Right, cookies. Raisins.

“So where did you work before this?” he asks. Then, “Oh!”

He pulls out his phone from where it’s vibrating in his pocket. It’s a text from Adam Birkholtz, the father of two of his students. Chris usually makes it a policy not to give out his personal information to parents, but Adam had been going through a divorce just when Chris and Caitlin had moved to Samwell, and they’d gotten to talking. Nice guy, even if his daughter’s a bit of a handful. Caitlin and Chris got drinks a few times with Adam and his friend Justin and Justin’s wife March, watched a couple games together during the winter, and they chat every time they see each other around town.

 _Hey Mr C. You up for doing some sweet tending this year? We’re looking to get a team together,_ the text reads.

He types out a quick _yes!!!!_ then looks up to see Eric looking at him uncertainly. Oh. That was probably pretty rude of him, to just break off his thought like that. He’s supposed to be welcoming Eric, here. The administration chose him specifically because he’s meant to be friendly, and he’s not doing a very good job.

“Do you like hockey, Eric?” he asks. That’s a good question, Chris thinks.

“Oh my God!” Eric says. He laughs, _again_. Chris really likes him. “Do I ever!”

_X_

The Haus is usually a quiet spot to get some work done on Sunday night. It’s the not the most common of places to go for filling out project proposals and grant applications, and it’s definitely seen better days, but it’s got good craft beer and actually decent espresso and cool art on the walls that the owner, Lardo, does herself. Derek’s bought a few pieces for himself and his mother, actually. Lardo’s got a good eye for colour. He likes it here; it’s pretty chill. A few of the more familiar faces dotting the booths and tables smile or nod at him as he takes his regular spot at the bar.

“Hey Derek,” Lardo calls from where she’s wiping down the back counter. “What can I get ya?”

He’s pretty sure she’s got a step installed the length of the bar for her to see across it properly, because she’s _tiny_. Definitely a foot shorter than he is, and at least a hundred pounds less.

“You still got that good imported stuff I had last week?” he asks. She gives him a thumbs up, pulls open the fridge and uncaps the bottle on her belt buckle in one smooth move.

“We got a group coming in tonight,” she says, “so you might wanna put some headphones in or something. My partner and some friends.”

“Are they gonna be loud?” he asks, taking a drink from his beer. Canadian stuff is so much stronger than American.

She laughs. “Oh yeah. They’re --”

“WELL, WELL, WELL. WHO DO WE HAVE HERE,” comes a loud and vaguely familiar voice behind him, and he startles enough that his beer goes up his nose, which is incredibly unpleasant.

“Please, your inside voice,” Lardo says, wincing apologetically at Derek. He turns, and grins when he sees who it is.

“Shitty Knight, is that you?” Derek asks, standing to shake Shitty’s hand. Shitty, of course, goes in for a hug instead.

“Derek fucking Nurse, what are you doing here?”

Shitty’s got short hair and a mustache now, but his eyes are as bright and his smile as wide and warm as it was back when he was Derek’s captain at Andover -- God -- nearly twenty-five years ago.

“This is weird,” Lardo says, squinting up at them.

“I live here, man,” Derek says.

“At the Haus? I mean, upstairs?” Shitty asks. There’s an apartment, Lardo’s said, but as far as Derek knows ~~,~~ one of the bartenders lives there. Weird dude, but good to bounce story ideas off of when Derek’s in a writing kick. Jackson, or Jamieson, or something.

“Nah, closer to the university. I mean, I moved here a few years ago so my mom wouldn’t be alone after my mom died. They retired here a decade or so ago.”

Shitty takes the bar stool next to Derek’s. “Shit, sorry about your mom, dude. Hope your mom’s doing alright, though. Can’t believe I’ve never seen you around town.”

Derek shrugs. “I don’t know, I pretty much keep to myself. Work a lot, write some, you know. What are _you_ doing here?”

“Oh, man! Actually, this is perfect! I can’t believe this. Wait, wait. Have you met Lardo? My better half? Actually, more like my better five eighths and a bit. Lardo, Nursey. Nursey, Lardo. Great. Glad we’re all acquainted. This is the best night of my motherfucking life.”

“Jesus. You still talk too much, then. I come in here every other week,” Derek says, laughing. “I didn’t know _you_ were her partner.”

Lardo’s still looking at them with an eyebrow raised and her arms crossed.

“We went to Andover together in the 90s,” Derek says. “Shits here was my captain his senior year, when I was just a freshman.”

The door opens and two men walk in -- one tall and Asian and the other shorter and dirty blond, both talking quickly and gesturing with their hands.

“Hey! We’re here for the meeting tonight,” says the taller one to Lardo. She points to Shitty with a wink.

“Welcome men, to the humble, hallowed halls of the Haus,” says Shitty, standing once more to shake their hands solemnly. “Glad and grateful to have you among us. The rest should be getting here any -- ah! Our dynamic defence duo, the daring and delicious Holster and Ransom!”

“Might want to cool it with the alliterations,” Lardo says, then turns to take the someone’s beer order.

Two others have just walked in -- one of them is, oddly enough, the man he sees every evening on the six o’clock news, though he is much taller than expected. Derek’s only ever seen him sitting down. Something Blinkhorn? Definitely not whatever it was Shitty just called him.

“Good evening, gentlemen and gentlewomen,” booms the face of SBS Channel Five, who really is incredibly large and shockingly blond. The other patrons in the bar turn to stare.

“You were right,” Derek says absently to Lardo. With one hand he traces the ring of water droplets his bottle makes when he lifts it to his mouth to take a drink. Lardo had just laughed when he’d first mentioned coasters all those months ago, gesturing to the old beat-up, water-stained bar in guise of answer. 

“Headphones,” she says as she pours a red ale from the taps.

“What!” Shitty says. “No way. You still play, man? We could use you!”

Derek’s eyes snap to Shitty. “I haven’t in a few years, but I’ve still got my gear. Played in a pick-up league when I was living in --”

“Shitty, why the fuck are you drinking Keith’s,” says a new voice, deep and kind of raspy and wow, the dude is tall and well-built and _ginger._ Derek’s eyes go wide.

“It’s mine,” Derek says. “What’s wrong with it?” He takes a drink from the bottle and clutches it to his chest almost defensively but can’t bring himself to frown.

The redhead blinks. “Oh. Nothing, I guess. I just think it’s funny that hipsters think it’s like, good shit.”

“I think I’m too old to be one of those,” Derek says.

“I don’t even know you, man,” the guy says. He nods at Lardo and points to one of the taps.

Derek holds out his hand, and the guy shakes it cautiously. His is calloused and large, unlike Derek’s, which is thin and graceful like an artist’s hand, Lardo says. “Derek Nurse.”

“Billy Poindexter, but call me Dex. You here for the meeting?”

More guys are streaming in, settling in some tables in the back of the bar. There’s at least a dozen now, plus the two who had walked in earlier -- Holsom and Ranster? Whatever. He’ll get their names later. Or tomorrow night, when he watches the news.

He catches Shitty’s eye. “Guess so,” he says, shrugging. Shitty beams and claps him on the back so hard he jerks, nearly hitting his teeth on the bottle of beer.

“I think we’re just waiting on Jack, now,” Dex says, then sighs like he’s hauling air up from the depths of his soul. “He better not be late, I’ve got to be up early tomorrow. I’ve got some curlers coming in at eight and I need to be awake at least two hours before that to be able to deal with them.”

“Jack’s never late,” Shitty says.

“Are you a hairdresser?” Derek asks.

“What,” Dex says.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” says a man behind them. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Jack’s Canadian,” Shitty says. Derek turns to see a man, tall and wide and vaguely familiar, grey at the edge of his hair and lines creasing his forehead in a frown. He’s dressed like an old man in ill-fitting khakis and a brown sweater, and has a leather messenger bag swung over his shoulder, but he can’t be any more than a decade older than Derek. Pretty in shape, too. More so than most of the rest of them, that’s for sure. Whatever. Derek’s not so bad yet, he doesn’t think, even if he does have a bit more pudge around his middle than he did in college.

“Hey Shits, Dex,” the man, Jack, says. His voice is quiet for a man his size. “I guess we can get started.”

Derek stands and follows them to the group of tables someone’s pushed together in the back, and finds a seat behind the short blond at the back.

“Hi, I’m Eric Bittle,” the blond says, turning and beaming sunnily at Derek.

“Derek Nurse. Did you say Bitty?”

If possible, Eric smiles even wider. “Did you know Jack used to play for the Bruins?”

“The _Bruins?_ ”

Jack clears his throat at the front. “Um, hi. Thank you all for coming. This won’t take long, I know you have, uh, families to get home to. If you’re interested in playing -- wait. No. So there’s a tournament in March that I’m helping to organize--” the redhead Dex snorts “--and we need a team to host it. I was thinking we could practice maybe three times a week?”

“Jesus, Jack,” someone says from the front, “no way.”

“Oh. Twice?”

There’s some grumbling.

“Once? We have to practice at least once. Dex says -- oh that’s Dex, there, he manages the Samwell Arena -- Dex says we can have the ice Sunday nights at eight pm, Mondays at six or Thursdays at seven. In the morning. Six and seven in the morning. So, your pick.”

Shitty raises his hand. “I think I speak for everyone when I say Sunday night is good. Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“For sure. I gotta work, man.”

“I don’t, but I’m lazy.”

Shitty stands. “Mind if I take it from here, Jacky?” Jack smiles gratefully and steps back. “Right! So I’ve got a sign-up sheet here, and after this I’ll pass it around and you can all put in your names, positions on the ice, phone numbers, and email addresses, and we’ll send you all the info for the tournament later. Sound good?”

“I’ll make a spreadsheet,” says the same man who had protested Jack’s three-practice idea earlier.

“Excellent. Thank you, Doc. Now.” Shitty rubs his hands together not unlike a fly when it lands on a piece of peanut butter toast. “Fine men. On this day, October 10th, in the year of our Lards 2016, I say unto you, welcome to Samwell Gentlemen’s Hockey.”


	2. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's tricks, there's treats, there's Wonder Woman underwear with a bow on the butt. Welcome to Samwell Gentlemen's Halloween.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS WEEK'S EPISODE BROUGHT TO YOU BY: The wonderful insights of [dadbob](www.dadbob.tumblr.com) and [des-zimbits](www.des-zimbits.tumblr.com), the chai cider (chaider!) at my favourite local café, and readers/commenters like YOU!

“It’s about changing the language, you know? Creating a more open and welcoming space. Most people don’t know this but women make up the fastest growing demographic of boilermakers in America,” Shitty says. He’s got a forkful of vegan meatloaf in one hand and a joint in the other, waving both around somewhat dangerously, while Lardo nods her head in assumed interest in her chair across from him. “I mean, it’s been called the Brotherhood of Boilermakers since the late 1800s, and that can be alienating, right?”

“Definitely,” Lardo says. She plucks the blunt from his fingertips and takes a long drag before exhaling through their current spoof made of a toilet paper roll and bounce sheets. It’s got flowers on it -- the most motherfucking artistic spoof in town, probably. “Women deserve to be included. And, like, non-binary boilermakers.”

Goddamn, Shitty loves her.

“Yeah. Fuck yeah! So locals 47, 128 and 212 have asked me to help them draft a petition, make sure it’s all legal, right? I’m excited about it, because I feel like after all these years of working with the union we’re making real change happen. It feels small, but it’s a step in the right direction. You know?”

“Hm. Yeah. I think--”

Shitty never gets to hear what Lardo thinks about his steps or his directions. Instead, there’s a knock at their door. Many knocks, actually, in quick succession.

“Are we expecting anyone?” he asks, then looks down at the only thing he’s wearing, which are Wonder Woman briefs with a bow on the butt added via Lardo’s glue-gun. She rolls her eyes, taps the joint out on her empty plate, and shoos him toward the door and the housecoat hanging up next to it.

“Um, one second!” Shitty calls out. Whoever’s on the other side is still knocking. Maybe it’s Jack then, and Jack is the only person who ever really visits them or knocks. Well, it could be Holster, maybe, who’s been coming over a bit more since the divorce, or possibly Lardo’s brother --

It’s none of those people. It’s a child, no older than six or seven, in a firefighter costume, and a woman, who is probably the kid’s mother but Shitty won’t assume like some kind of jerk, staring at him with wide eyes and something like horror in the set of her mouth.

The kid, of course, is holding up a bright orange bag. “Trick or treat,” it says. No. Shit. They, they say. It’s not a _thing_. Fuck. _They’re_ not a thing. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.

“Jesus Christ,” Shitty whispers.

“Excuse us?” the woman says. Her hands reach down quickly to hide the kid’s ears.

“It’s Halloween,” Shitty says dumbly.

“Mommy?” the kid says, twisting around to look up at their mom. “Why is the man dressed like that? Is it a costume?”

“Okaaay. We’ll just go to the next one, alright Landon?” she says, and takes his hand to lead him away.

“ _Landon_?” Shitty asks.

“That’s me,” says the tiniest firefighter Shitty’s ever seen. Too small to even put out a match, probably. Though, like, why the fuck would such a small child be playing with fire in the first place? God, Shitty is so glad Holster and Ransom never bring their kids over. He really should tell them sometime how grateful they should be for it.

“My neighbour, he might not be --” Shitty starts, but is cut off when door across the corridor opens to reveal Jack in a white, drapey robe, complete with a wig and fake beard of ringlets holding out a bowl of candy like the Greek god of sugar and exceeded expectations.

“Landon!” Jack says, dropping down to a crouch and looking the child in the eyes. “You going to skate again with me this year? First clinic is next week. You look great, by the way. Best firefighter I’ve ever seen, for sure.”

The kid giggles and the mom casts one last disgusted look at Shitty, who is still gaping at the scene in front of him, before turning to Jack with a beam. And a… wink?

“Oh, Jack,” she says, “I forgot you lived here!”

She laughs in a way that makes Shitty pretty sure it’s a lie, so instead of sticking around to watch the weirdest show he’s seen since that time he decided to experiment and put a bit of hash oil in the spaghetti sauce he then fed his father, he hastily retreats and closes the door, twisting to find Lardo looking at him with a perfectly arched eyebrow. Sometimes Shitty thinks she practices her facial expressions in the mirror to make them the most effective and communicative, but then he remembers that probably not, because she’s just perfect like that.

“Did you know it’s Halloween _and_ Jack secretly has children looking up to him? And I mean that metaphorically as well as physically! I can’t believe this.” He throws his hands in the air. “Just how many figures has he fathered?”

“We haven’t got any candy,” Lardo says. She sighs and looks up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe we didn’t realize what day it is.”

“Who fucking goes trick-or-treating in an adult condo complex?” he asks, feeling completely flustered, and he keeps staring at the door then tearing his gaze away as if some kid in a cop costume is going to come in and arrest him and seize his personal grow-op in the guest room at any second.

“This place is like, ninety percent octogenarian. They’re all coming to visit their grandparents.”

“I’m not a grandparent and I don’t want more kids coming to my door, Lards. You know I hate being decent when I don’t have to be. Even this _bathrobe_ is restrictive to my limbs.”

“Okay. So what do we do?” Damn. She is so practical. And beautiful. Really, super beautiful. And just overall a --

Another knock rings out loudly.

“Lardo, my love, it seems to me we’ve got no choice,” Shitty says solemnly. “Lock the fucking door and hide.”

_X_

Ransom looks up at the house with a stomach full of doubt and a hand full of -- hand. Fatoumata’s hand in one, and a fake hand picked up from the side of the road which almost undoubtedly came from the lawn of this place and blew away in the wind. Fatou’s black cloak is whipping around her legs like Jacob’s, March having pinned down their blue-and-bronze ties to their sweaters in anticipation of the weather. Their pointy hats have long since been abandoned to the back seat of the mini-van, leaving Jake’s blond curls and Fatou’s braids to the elements. Gaby is, of course, dressed in full hockey gear, and so her matching blonde is hidden by a mask -- a goalie’s this year to switch it up from the past three, where she just went as her regular defensewoman self.

“You three sure about this?” he asks. Fatou squeezes his hand tighter and Jacob shifts closer. The house is dilapidated in the most cliché way, with old peeling wooden shingles and cracked windows and wilted shrubs and a fake graveyard out in front, flickering porch light weakly illuminated a crooked veranda and a sign on the door that says _HAUNTED HOUSE:_ _ENTER AT OWN RISK_.

“You scared, Uncle R?” Gaby asks. She smirks and taps her stick on the ground lightly.

“No,” he lies. “No, I just wanted to make sure you understand that it’s fine to back out. No one is going to judge any of you.”

“Oliver Hankinson said it’s the best house in town,” Jake says quietly. He looks nervous. “He said they give out _whole chocolate bars_.”

“Well if Oliver Hankinson said,” Ransom mumbles.

“When’s Uncle H gonna meet us?” Fatou asks in a small voice. She’s gripping her wand and her bag of candy in her other white-knuckled hand.

“He only gets out of the studio at eight,” Ransom says. He regrets agreeing to let them stay out later than six like they had every other year. By now they should be fighting over which candy to trade for which on his living room floor by the fireplace.

“Alright,” Gaby says. Her voice lowers dramatically and she steps in front and turns to face them. “We can do this, team.”

“Is this… what I think it is?” Ransom asks. He hears Jake giggle next to Fatou, whose hand loosens marginally. Gaby looks up at him and glares through her hockey mask -- it’s almost this side of withering.

“Keep your eyes on the prize. If we work together, push through and stay focussed I have no doubt that we can make it and score enough, uh, Mars bars to win. Got it?” She pops her mouthguard in her mouth, so her next words are as muffled as they are determined. “Then let’s do this.”

_X_

Eric Bittle loved Halloween as a kid and a teenager. The candy, the pumpkin carving, the decorations, going house to house and meeting everyone in the neighbourhood, seeing where his teachers lived... As a college student, the rituals changed, but he loved them all the same -- trying new autumnal recipes, dressing in decidedly mother-unapproved costumes, getting high and telling ghost stories with his roommates, the parties. Yeah, he’s always loved Halloween. But now? Now he _adores_ it.

Really, it’s a perfect plan. He’s new to Samwell, and doesn’t know many people aside from the staff at the school -- Chris and Caitlin especially, what a _sweet_ couple -- and the men from the hockey team, even though they’ve only had two practices so far. So it’s brilliant: he’ll hand out his homemade treats, coo over the cute kids in costume, make small talk with their parents, exchange recipes for homemade Snickers bars, and hopefully make some friends in the process. This is why he moved across the country, after all -- a fresh start. New friends, new job, new life.

The bunny costume isn’t one he made himself -- he just found a onesie from Target and cut the legs slightly shorter so they’d be more like knee-length shorts -- but he doesn’t blame himself for that one. He’s been busy with his new job and house, after all. He’s got the door to his side of the rented duplex decorate with a fake witch smashing into the door, pumpkins lining the walkway, cute little orange lights around his windows -- it’s all wonderfully inviting, if he says so himself. So what if it’s kind of a crappy area of Samwell, and so what if the rest of the house looks like it’s falling apart. So what if his neighbours’ side of the house is fenced off with a _BEWARE OF DOG_ sign and a mean rottweiler to match. _His_ side looks great, he’s made sure of that.

So he sits back and waits. And waits. He rearranges his baggies full of treats again. He checks his watch -- six twenty three. And waits.

_X_

“I can’t believe I was once a child,” Shitty says. He’s lying on the guest bed with his head on Lardo’s stomach and winces when another knock sounds out on the door. It’s been happening with alarming frequency, for a door which does not have a pumpkin at its foot. “Children terrify me.”

“I know,” Lardo says. She runs a finger over his mustache almost lovingly. “Me too.”

_X_

At seven forty eight, a car pulls up in Eric’s driveway and he quickly jumps up and goes to the kitchen so it won’t look like he was waiting. At seven forty nine, there’s a knock at the door. He wonders how the kid -- or kids? -- will be dressed. There were a lot of Elsas and Thors last year, but he doesn’t really know what’s cool this year. Will they like his candy? Maybe he’ll ask them to taste them here to get feedback. He’ll make sure to give some to the parents too, so they know what their kids are eating. He’s even got little pamphlets with his ingredient lists for them.

At seven fifty he opens the door and --

“Oh,” he says. In front of him are three teenage boys as tall as he is, in jeans, sweatshirts and masks, holding out pillowcases full of candy.

“Trick or treat,” says one of them, probably going for gruff but instead his voice cracks on the last word. He shakes his bag.

Eric huffs. Well. He supposes he may as well give them something, even though it’s not quite what he expected. But he can’t eat all this, and if it stays in the house, he knows he will. He reaches for the bowl and holds it out for them.

“I _guess_ y’all can have a treat, then. Here, take a bag each. Just one, now.”

The same kid who’d spoken takes off his mask -- some kind of zombie -- and frowns. “Dude, what _is_ this stuff?” he asks. He’s got a big red pimple smack dab on the tip of his nose, and Eric kind of wants to tell him that that sweaty mask isn’t helping anything.

“Well! We’ve got some sea-salt lavender caramels -- it’s never too early to start developing your palates is what I always say -- and some homemade Almond Joy bars, and those are mini zucchini-chocolate muffins.”

“Oh, no way, my mom makes--” starts one of the guys, reaching out towards a bag, but the kid with his mask off snakes out his hand in a flash and grabs his wrist.

“Bro, what the fuck?” he hisses. “We’re not taking homemade shit from him. There could be like, razor blades in it.”

The third boy nods his head.

Eric gasps. “I can assure you there are no razor blades in my muffin recipe.”

“Can’t risk it, dude,” the boy who Eric has decided is the leader says.

“Well, _dude_ , when I was your age people gave out homemade things all the time and I never had a single problem. Heck, I did this last year back home in Georgia!” Eric puts the bowl down on the table next to the door -- which he’d decorated with an orange table cloth and cobwebs and a miniature pumpkin with bunny ears -- and crosses his arms.

“When you were our age? Like, forty years ago?”

“Ex _cuse_ me, young man,” Eric says, “I am _not_ that old.”

The boy raises an eyebrow. Damn. Eric has always wished he could do that. He used to practice in the mirror but it only ever looked like he had a bad twitch. “I think the last person who called me _young man_ was my grandfather,” he says.

Vaguely aware of his mouth opening and closing like a fish who’s just found out he’s actually a thirty nine year old man, Eric can’t think of anything to say and just stares at them.

“So, we’re like, not getting any candy here?” says the third and previously silent kid. “This is ridic. Let’s just go, man.”

When the door closes with one last “fucking waste of time, bro”, Eric uncrosses his arms slowly and bites his lip, feeling the keen sting of rejection he hasn’t dealt with since -- actually, it’s probably better he doesn’t go there. Or anywhere. Actually, no, he doesn’t want to stay here, waiting to be disappointed. Maybe he could go somewhere.

With a decisive nod he grabs his bowl of treats, his keys, and his wallet, turns out the lights -- all of them, even the orange ones outside -- and leaves the house.

_X_

The floor teeters and the lights flicker as Ransom enters the house, Jake and Fatou clinging to his sides and Gaby brandishing her stick in front.

“Don’t wave that thing around,” he says, “that’s how you broke the last one.”

“No, I broke the last one when I slammed it into the side of your house,” she hisses back. He can hear the eyeroll, and for a second has a vision of a teenage Gabrielle Birkholtz that’s enough to make him shiver.

“You scared, Papa?” Fatou asks, correctly interpreting his sudden movement as fear.

They advance slowly down the corridor, pushing away cobwebs. “Maybe a little,” he whispers. “It’ll be alright.”

The lights go pitch dark with a ringing _clang!_ somewhere in the house, and someone above them screams.

Jake whimpers. “Something’s touching my legs,” he says, shifting closer still. Ransom’s pretty sure something is touching him too, but not his legs -- there’s something weirdly squishy and cold pressing into his butt.

“Eyes on the prize,” says Gaby, and Ransom knows better by now than to mention the waver in her voice.

They soldier on.

_X_

“Is the coast clear?” Lardo hisses to Shitty, who’s got one eye squeezed shut tight and the other open wide looking out of the condo’s peephole. In his sight he’s got a ladybug and a fairy princess accompanied by an old man in a blue windbreaker talking to a beaming and not at all uncomfortable Jack.

“I think they’re distracted,” he whispers back. “You ready to make a run for it?”

She nods, squaring her shoulders.

“Okay. Three, two, one…”

He throws the door open and sprints.

_X_

A wizened old lady appears suddenly in the smoke-filled room on the right, beckoning them closer, but by silent agreement not even Gaby takes a step into it. He would never admit it to anyone but Fatou, but Ransom is ready for this to end. They’ve been jumped at by clowns (which privately Ransom thinks is a bit insensitive), they’ve seen disembodied heads that smell mysteriously like bubblegum, have heard the sounds of a revving chainsaw getting louder and louder for the past however minutes they’ve been in here, and Ransom really thinks something keeps touching his ass.

“I really hope Oliver Hankinson was right,” Jake says. He’s almost drowned out by the sound of a child singing Ring Around the Rosie from the room containing the old lady who has now disappeared. “About the chocolate bars, you know.”

“We must be near the end,” Ransom says. He thinks he can see a light somewhere ahead; they just have to get through the next room with what he thinks is a disemboweled girl sitting on an operating table.

The lights turns off again, and something large passes by them, nearly knocking Ransom over. Fatou and Jake scream -- and when the lights turn on again, so does Ransom.

All that’s left of Gaby is her hockey stick.

_X_

Eric deserves a drink, he thinks. He steps into the Haus with the bowl of treats tucked under his arm and a frown on his face, going straight for the bar where he sees Derek Nurse, dubbed Nursey by an enthusiastic Adam Birkholtz at their last practice, surrounded by piles of paper and at least three open notebooks.

“Here,” Eric says, sliding into the seat next to Nursey’s and pushing the bowl over. “Have some stupid sweets. Apparently kids these days don’t appreciate good, old-fashioned, homemade treats.”

“Did you just say _kids these days_?” Nursey takes a bag without hesitation, and Eric is torn between the urge to whoop and scream.

“I am _not_ that old,” he grumbles instead. The bartender, who is disappointingly not Lardo, nods at him. “Can I have a tequila sunrise, please?”

Nursey raises an eyebrow as he peers into his baggie, which is just _freaking_ perfect. Dumb eyebrows.

“Shut up!” Eric says. “It has vitamin C. And tequila is made from agave which -- nevermind. You know I love Halloween? But Halloween has _betrayed_ me.”

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” says Shitty’s voice from behind them, and a snort that definitely comes from Lardo. He sits next to Eric while Lardo goes behind the bar to talk quietly with the bartender.

“Are these vegan?” Nursey asks.

Eric sighs and closes his eyes. “No, they are not.”

“Oh, Nursey, we tried that meat-free soy crumble shit you recommended to us. It’s not so bad, really. Right, my love?” Shitty says. Lardo shrugs. He reaches over to take the bag from Nursey’s hand and doesn’t hesitate to dig in. “Could get used to the stuff,” he says through a mouthful of chocolate muffin.

Eric opens his eyes to see Dex, one of their defensemen and the manager of the rink, coming out of the hall that leads to the bathroom.

“You a fuckin’ vegan now, Shits?” he says, but Shitty can’t answer as he’s trying in vain to swallow half the muffin at once.

“No, uh, that’s me,” Nursey says. “What have you got against vegans?

“Oh. Uh. Nothing,” Dex says.

“Whatever,” Eric says. “Point is, Halloween isn’t like it used to be.”

When his drink comes it’s hard not to down it in one gulp, but he doesn’t think his body would take too kindly to tequila shots these days. He can’t stay out too late either because he has to work tomorrow, and the Lord knows he can’t recover as quickly as he -- shit.

Eric Bittle loved Halloween as a kid and teenager. Now, Halloween doesn’t love him back.

_X_

“Gaby? GABY!” Jake yells. Ransom’s never heard him speak so loud, and he’s not the only one who’s distraught -- Fatou jumped into Ransom’s arms as soon as the lights turned on and they noticed Gaby’s disappearance, which makes him glad he’s kept up with the gym lately.

“Let’s just get to the end so we can ask them to turn on all the lights in the house and find her,” Ransom says. What is he going to tell Holster if he loses her? He can’t let on that he’s worried yet. “I’m sure she just ran ahead.”

The girl on the operating table in front of them stirs and calls out for help. Sort of.

“You gonna come through or not?” she says. “I’m getting a crick in my neck.”

A ghostly figure swings down in the doorway and hangs there before going back up, and a wolf howls in the distance, followed by the sound of a chainsaw revving. Fatou slips down and stands up straight. Her wand is clutched tightly in her first in front of her and Jake copies her shakily. The poor disemboweled girl just sighs noisily before screaming about how someone is going to get her. Privately, Ransom thinks the unsterile state of the operating room would get her first, but he doesn’t voice his thoughts, because his butt is being felt up by something unknown again -- when he turns there’s nothing there.

The two kids share a look and nod at the same time. Sometimes he thinks Jake and Fatou are the twins instead of Jake and Gaby, and then he remembers that March definitely only gave birth to one child. He was there for all of it.

“Run!” Jake cries, so they do.

_X_

Shitty’s in the middle of telling the story of when he accidentally drove to court with no pants on only to find that his client had done the same to a rapt audience of Bitty, Nursey and Dex when Jack walks in looking sad and awkward once more. Still gorgeous, though. Damn him.

“Hey,” Jack says, leaning onto the bar.

“You!” Shitty cries, cutting himself off abruptly.

“Me?” Jack says.

“ _You_ are one privately paternal pal!”

Jack looks down at his his hands, which are fiddling with his care keys. “Oh,” he says.

“Yeah, _oh_. I didn’t know you coached!”

The other three start talking about kiwis or corn starch or something, and Lardo’s in her office doing accounting work, so Shitty focuses all his attention on Jack next to him.

“It’s just the peewees. And the bantams. And sometimes I do a few clinics for the midgets.” Jack shrugs, but doesn’t look up.

“Better you than me.” Shitty’s kind of offended Jack’s never said anything before, really.

“Well, I ran out of stuff to give out,” Jack says glumly. “I had to put a sign up on my door. I like kids. They’re easy.”

Bitty jerks his head up. “Ugh. _Kids_ ,” he says with feeling. He pulls his bowl of -- admittedly delicious -- treats closer to his chest.

A light flashes up in Shitty’s noggin, and he grins.

“Jack, my beautiful robust double double,” he says, wrapping an arm around both Bitty and Jack, “have I got some great fucking news for you.”

_X_

Gaby’s still laughing when they walk around the house to the minivans -- Ransom’s and Holster’s -- and Holster’s high-fived her maybe seven times in the past ten minutes, and has even thrown in a fist bump or two in the rotation. They’re all happily munching on yes, full chocolate bars given to them by the owners of the house, Mandy and Jenny. Ransom has a Caramilk, because he deserves this, damn it. Fatou’s yawning into his ear and he hopes she’ll sleep well despite the excitement and the sugar.

“You shoulda seen your face when you walked outta there!” Gaby says, again, then imitates Ransom’s expression, again. Even Fatou has turned her face away from Ransom’s neck and has begun giggling again, though she’s still clinging to him tightly.

“Early bed, I think,” he murmurs into her ear, and she nods, not even protesting.

“Come on you two, gotta bring you back to your mom’s,” Holster says. He steers them toward the van, which they hop into, shoving each other to get the captain seat. Fatou jumps down and goes to theirs and steps in.

“You fucker,” Ransom hisses as soon the doors have closed and the kids can’t hear them anymore. “I thought I was going to have to tell Kelly I got her daughter kidnapped in a haunted house. She would have eaten me alive. Actually, I think I’d have been more scared of Gaby once we found her.”

Holster laughs loudly and claps Ransom on the back.

“God. I need a drink,” Ransom says. His heart has only just returned to its regular rate, and he reminds himself to check his blood pressure tomorrow before his first patient arrives.

“March is home, right?” Holster asks. "I gotta drop the kids off at Kelly's, but after, wanna meet me at the Haus?"

Ransom rolls his eyes to the darkening sky and sighs, a smile tugging the edges of his mouth wide.

“Meet you at the Haus.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEHIND THE SCENES
> 
> Paraphrased from an October 18th Tumblr chat:
> 
> me: ransom's takin his kids trick or treatin  
> me: wait, shit, no  
> me: he only has the one  
> me: the others are holsters'  
> me: WHATEVER CLOSE ENOUGH
> 
> I'm over at [batlardo](www.batlardo.tumblr.com), give me a shout!


	3. Operation Turkey Stuffing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris has an idea. And like most of his ideas, it's a great one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode brought to you by a month-long bout of procrastination, [dadbob's](http://www.dadbob.tumblr.com) insights and encouragements, and popsicles. Like, a whole lot of popsicles.

**MONDAY**

It starts with Gabrielle Birkholtz, a recess period spent indoors, and a miniature eraser shaped like a strawberry.

Chris sighs, because Gaby, and the rest of her third grade class, are stuck inside for the fourth consecutive school day, because it’s November, and it’s cold in Massachusetts. And Gaby isn’t meant to stay indoors for long periods of time -- most nine-year-olds aren’t.

“Brayden _stole_ Fatou’s eraser,” Gaby says, crossing her arms and sliding her foot not unlike a bull ready to charge. One of the girls that follow her around sticks her tongue out at the alleged thief. Fatou, the victim, is sitting at her desk with Jacob, twirling an eraserless pencil in her hand and not raising her eyes.

“Brayden?” Chris says. He raises an eyebrow. “Did you?”

“I did not! Gaby’s lying! She’s just mad at me because, because… she’s jealous of me!” Brayden cries. He’s shorter than Gaby by three inches but stands straight and frowns, while the rest of the class, which has surrounded them, watches with interest.

“Objection!” Gaby says. “That’s a lie, Your Honor! It’s all a lie!”

Chris holds up a hand. “Order! Order in the class! I’ll ask you both to recount what happened, and we’ll continue from there. Brayden, if you could start please.”

Little Brayden clears his throat and claps his hands together. “There was an eraser on the ground and I picked it up.”

“And?”

“And then Gaby came and started accusing me. That’s it, Mr. Chow. Swear on my mother’s bible.”

“That’s -- okay. Gaby?”

“Sir, this morning Brayden told Fatou he liked her eraser. The next thing I know, he has it in his hands! Clearly, he took it.”

Chris tilts his head at her. “That’s circumstantial evidence,” he says somberly. Gaby gasps and brings her hand to her chest.

“Uh, Mr. Chow?” Fatou says from her spot. “I’m not mad. Can I just have my eraser back?”

“Oh!” Brayden says. “Oh, yeah. Here. Sorry, Fatou. I really did just pick it up off the ground.” He drops it onto her desk and Fatou smiles while she puts it back on the end of her pencil. Jacob whispers something in her ear and she giggles.

“Thank you, Brayden,” Chris says. “Gaby, could I speak to you for a second? Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble.”

“Sounds exactly like what you’d say if I was,” she mumbles, but follows him to his desk anyway.

He lets her sit on the rolly chair, which he does for all his students, and he himself perches on the edge of his cluttered desk, careful not to displace anything, while folds his hands over his lap and smiles at her. Behind them, the kids have returned to talking and laughing, the excitement over. There are only three or four minutes left before they have to march over to the music room, and he knows some of the more organized students are getting their things ready even now -- Gaby’s never been one of them, unlike her brother. She frowns down at her hands, clenching them and unclenching over and over, tapping her foot. Like Chris, she’s always been fidgety.

“I just wanted to know if you’re alright,” he says softly, so the others won’t hear.

She shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I be,” she says. The chair spins a bit back and forth.

“This is the third time we’ve had a fight in class in a week.” He doesn’t say that she’s always been involved -- she knows that already, and he doesn’t want to talk down to her, because he knows that sucks.

She raises her shoulders again.

“Okay. But you know you can tell me if there’s anything, right? I wouldn’t tell your brother or your parents if you didn’t want me to.”

“Yes, Mr. C.” She sighs.

“Hey. What are your plans for Thanksgiving?” he asks, eyes flicking up to his extra large calendar on the wall behind her.

“Turkey at Mom’s. Can I go now?” she asks, already standing, so he nods and she runs off, already chattering with whoever.

Chris doesn’t play favourites. He cares for each of his students equally. But the thing is, now that he’s been playing hockey and spending more time with Adam Birkholtz, he’s privy to certain things in Jacob and Gabrielle’s lives that probably he wouldn’t be otherwise -- like the fact that Holster and Kelly are currently fighting again, because Holster usually has the kids on the weekend, but Kelly wants them for Thanksgiving because her parents are coming in from Vermont to see them…

Just like that, Chris has an idea. And, goodness, it’s a great one.

Well, most of Chris’ ideas are great, actually, and Caitlin would definitely agree. He’s got vision, she says. Dreams and goals. It’s the details that kind of get lost in the process, but that’s fine, truly. Between he and Cait, they get everything done, and they do it well. Since they began dating all those years ago, once a month, they sit down and go over their objectives for the month, and what they need to do to achieve them, and it’s worked out excellent for them so far. Okay, so there was that time he’d decided to build a treehouse for her since she’d said it had always been her childhood dream to have one, but then realized they don’t have a tree in their yard, but it was fine, really. He’d just built them a shed instead, so now they had a place to put their bikes and their lawnmower and their whippersnipper and his hockey gear and the patio set and barbeque. And, well, there are a few goals they’re still working on, but that’s -- it’s fine. One day it’ll --

The bell rings and he herds the third-graders towards the music classroom, almost skipping in excitement. He can’t wait to tell Caitlin about his plan -- he knows she’ll love it as much as he does -- and nearly runs to the gym as soon as the last student is in with Mrs. Blanchard, but he has to make another stop first. A very important stop. The _most_ important, maybe.

“Bitty!” he calls into the cafeteria kitchen. “Mr. Bittle?”

Bitty’s head pops out of his office in the back near the freezers, and beams.

“What’s up, Mr. C?” he says, coming out with a pen behind his ear and a dirty apron tied around his waist.

Chris rubs his hands together and hops a little.

“What,” he asks, smiling wide, “are you doing on Thursday?”

_X_

“I can work with this,” Eric says thoughtfully, “I think.” He crouches down to peer into Chris’ oven, which is clean and well-kept, just like the rest of Chris’ house. The whole place is beautiful, actually -- tasteful, understated, uncluttered, if a little heavy on the Sharks teal -- and Eric sighs internally. It even has a nice big backyard with a shed and a little garden and -- well, Eric never really expected this from Chris, whose desk at school usually looks like a miniature tornado passes through hourly, but he definitely expected it from Caitlin. They’re just the _sweetest_ couple, and Eric’s so glad Chris decided to befriend him and take him to that first Haus meeting last month.

He doesn’t feel lonely at all. Nope.

“You think?” Chris asks. He’s sitting on his countertop and swinging his legs while he peers down at Eric with a concerned expression on his face.

“Well, we’ll need to make a list of all the people we’ve invited so we can get the right size turkey. If my estimations are correct, this oven is just the right size. Of course,” Eric says, then sighs, “I’ll have to start the day ahead and transport things here early morning, but it can be done.”

“Oh!” Chris jumps down and grabs the pad of paper stuck to the -- generously sized -- fridge. “Why don’t you just do everything here and spend the night? That way Cait and I can help, and there’s no risk of ruining anything.”

Eric stands and puts his hands on his hips. “I don’t want to put you out,” he says.

“It’s fine! We’ve got three bedrooms. Well, four if you count the futon in the basement.”

“ _Three_ bedrooms?” Eric asks. It seems a little excessive.

Chris shrugs and looks down. “Well, you know.”

“Oh. _Oh._ Right then, sure, that’s what we’ll do.”

It’s Monday, which means he only has tomorrow to gather supplies so he can start right after work Wednesday, and this late in the game, it’s going to be hard to find an A-Grade turkey the size they need. It’ll have to begin thawing right away, and then brine overnight Wednesday. It’s a challenge, that’s for sure, but Eric _loves_ a challenge.

_X_

**TUESDAY**

Tuesdays are one of the few mornings Dex doesn’t have to be at the rink before eight, so he likes to actually take the time to taste his coffee, read the paper, and catch up on ESPN highlights. It’s a mostly quiet time for him, which he enjoys. A slow morning, just him and his thoughts and the TV and the news. He makes his bed and tidies up the place; sometimes he cleans the bathtub if he didn’t get to it the night before. He likes the solitude, able to do what he wants when he wants without anybody asking to flood the rink or to replace a lightbulb or to turn up the heat in the dressing rooms or to unplug the toilets or...

Yeah, Tuesday mornings are good. Which means, of course, that something is just meant to happen to him to ruin them forever.

It’s just before eight the Tuesday before Thanksgiving when two things happen at once: his cellphone rings, and a knock sounds at the door. The knock is more worrying than the call, but the caller ID says it’s Lardo and he really needs to talk to her so he calls out a quick “JUST A SECOND!” and swipes to answer while pushing himself away from the table and going to answer.

“Hey,” he says. “You get my email? About the liquor license and the hospitality suite?”

“Yeah. Look, why don’t you come by tomorrow after supper at Chow’s?” It’s early for her to be up, but she doesn’t sound sleepy -- not that he would expect anything less than put-together from her.

Whoever is at the door knocks again.

“ONE SECOND! Sorry, someone at the door. Uh. Yeah, yeah. You going to that?”

She sighs. “I’m closing up the bar for Thanksgiving, but Shitty has a boilermaking in conference in Manitoba he has to go to, so I figure I may as well.”

“Yeah, okay,” he says, reaching the door and unlocking it. “Look, I gotta go. See you tomorrow.”

When he opens the door, it’s to find a girl -- okay, like, a young woman -- he doesn’t think he’s ever seen before, staring at him with a frown. She’s almost as tall as he is and has long black hair and bangs that cover most of her eyes, is wearing all black clothes and makeup, has at least three piercings that he can see, and she’s got a black bag hitched on her shoulder and another at her feet.

“What?” Dex says. He blinks. “I mean, can I help you?”

“You Poindexter?” she says. She shakes her head so her bangs sway away from her eyes and squints at him, head tilted.

“Uh, yes? Who are you?”

She nods, and purses her lips, then picks up the bag from the floor. “I’m Andy. Your daughter.”

A million thoughts race through Dex’s head, but the most prominent one is: _I don’t fucking have a daughter._

“I don’t have a daughter,” he says, for good measure. Like, he’s pretty damn sure he would have remembered that.

The girl snorts. “Surprise. Oh,” she says, and her bangs obscure her eyes again, “and I’m moving in.”

_X_

“Does he know it’s only in two days?” Caitlin whispers to Chris. They’re watching Bitty from the living room a respectable and safe distance away, poking their heads over the top of the couch and crouching back down whenever Bitty turns their way. Not that he’d see them anyway -- he’s got tunnel vision, Chris thinks, and his brain is fully focussed whatever it is he’s baking. It’s like he’s dancing through their kitchen, a complicated choreography only he knows -- a whirlwind of flour and sugar and butter. It’s terrifying.

Chris glances at her, and her eyes are as wide as pie plates. “Let’s not mention it,” he says. They duck back behind the couch once more.

_X_

**WEDNESDAY**

Dex takes Wednesday off from work because despite Andy’s relative silence regarding most matters, and his continued bewilderment, it looks like she’s here to stay and he needs to get her… stuff. She won’t answer his questions about her mother or how she knew where to find him or who he was or anything, and as frustrated as Dex is, he knows he can’t just leave her on the porch step to freeze. At least he has a guest bedroom, but it’s currently occupied by a desk and filing cabinets that will have to be brought to the arena. Andy slept on the couch Tuesday night, and spoke only to say thank you for lunch and supper, even though she ate little.

Dex is confused, kind of scared, somewhat angry, and a lot worried.

So he wakes her up Wednesday morning and says he’s taking her to Ikea and Target and wherever else she needs, so she better get dressed and showered, but not in that order.

“I just…” he starts when she sits down at the table after her shower, squinting at her. Today she’s in a black t-shirt and red jeans, and her lips are as dark as they were yesterday. “How are you sure I’m your father?”

She stares at him through wet bangs and slowly raises her right arm, pulling down the arm hole of her shirt with her other hand to reveal a tuft of vivid orange armpit hair.

“Oh,” he says.

She nods once, then goes back to her cereal.

_X_

“Men,” Eric begins sternly, then winces when Caitlin gives him a look. “Right. Soldiers? Soldiers! Welcome to phase two of Operation Turkey Stuffing. We are T-minus twenty four hours until phase three begins. I have for all two of you a colour-coded list of items to accomplish, complete with a detailed itinerary and assignation of tasks. Please refer to it now for a list of bathroom breaks, and plan your liquid consumption accordingly. I have made coconut-chia balls to keep up your energy, which you will eat when necessary. Now!”

Chowder and Caitlin straighten and bring their hands to their forehead in salute at precisely the same moment. Their kitchen is big enough for Eric to circle them with his hands behind his back and look at them sternly.

“This will be difficult,” Eric says. “There will be times when you feel like giving up. But soldiers never quit, and I believe this will be worth it. I expect top form from you today, soldiers, have I made myself clear?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” they say in tandem.

“At ease,” Eric says. He picks up a yam with one hand and a peeler in the other. “Now let’s get to work.”

 

**THURSDAY**

The first car that parks along Chris’ street is, predictably, Holster’s minivan, and he’s right on time according to Bitty’s schedule -- Bitty, in his wisdom, had predicted Holster would arrive earlier than told, claiming boredom. As such, Bitty had also predicted that Holster would need to be occupied, so he sends Caitlin to the den with Holster so they can watch football and drink the first beers of the night.

The second car is Nursey’s, and that’s where Chris’ problems begin. When Chris sees an older woman, straight-backed and leopard-print-clad, stepping out daintily from the passenger’ side of the Prius with Nursey on the driver’s, he doesn’t know what to say. He can feel his eyes bulge as he looks out of the kitchen window -- Bitty’s got his back turned and is working on the caramelized onion and brie tart he’s got planned as one of his hors d’œuvres.

This is not part of the plan. It only gets worse from there, because as Nursey begins the walk up the driveway with presumably his mother, another car parks on the side of the street and out comes Lardo and Shitty. Shitty, who is supposed to be halfway to Manitoba by now, literally skipping up the sidewalk in seasonally-inappropriate jean shorts and a paint-splattered Hawaiian shirt.

Bitty is muttering something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like a sergeant’s drill when Chris turns to look at him, unsure of what to do. A knock sounds at the door, and he runs to get it before Bitty even looks up.

“Chowder!” Nursey says. “This is my--”

“Shh!” Chris hisses. The woman looks affronted.

“--mother,” Nursey finishes in a whisper. Shitty hollers out a greeting from behind him, and Chris squeaks.

The final nail in Chris’ imagined coffin comes when Dex’s pickup truck parks nearby and out comes Dex and a girl straight out of a 2009 Hot Topic with him.

“Chowder,” Nursey says, “are you going to let us in?”

Chris’s eyes dart quickly to the kitchen, but Bitty’s not there. He’s scheduled a break to check on Holster and Cait.

“Excuse me,” says Nursey’s mother. She sniffs.

Suddenly there are six people piled up on the porch steps and Chris doesn’t know what to do, and for once in his life, doesn’t know what to say.

“Smells good,” Shitty says from above Lardo’s head. “Bitty got you cooking with him?”

“Okay, fuck this. I’m going in,” Dex says, and pushes his way through the crowd. The others stream in around Chris, who is standing stock-still in the doorway with schedules and to-do lists and names of invited guests scrolling in his mind.

“Nice place. Where is everyone?” Lardo says, squinting up at Chris, but he can only blink at her. “Alright. We’ll find them.”

“BITTY!” Shitty yells.

When Chris finally shakes himself out of his stupor, he sees Jack Zimmermann standing at his door with a bowl in his hands, smiling nervously.

“Uh, hey Chowder,” Jack says. “Can I come in? My, um, my mom said I should bring something so I. I have mashed potatoes.”

“Most people bring wine,” Chris says slowly, voice hoarse like he’s spent the day singing with his class. Somewhere in the house, Bitty screams. “But I think potatoes will be fine.”

_X_

Dex, uncomfortable and getting hungrier by the minute, walks into the living room with Andy following behind him silently as ever. The football game is on, and Holster, Caitlin and Lardo are yelling at the TV, so Dex slides over to where Nursey and Shitty are talking about Shitty’s mother’s latest book. He likes them. He’s known Shitty and Lardo for years, of course, through Jack, but learning to play with Nursey has been -- an adventure, maybe. Frustratingly pretentious at times, childish and clumsy and forgetful at others, Nursey’s one of those people Dex just never knows how to take. It sometimes makes Dex want to punch things, especially on the ice, but like, he refuses to break anything because _he’s_ the one who’s going to have to replace whatever it is.

“What, you still live with your mother, Shits?” he says, trying for a smile. He probably just looks constipated.

“No, I do,” Nursey says coolly. “I’ve been taking care of her and the house since my mom died.”

Dex passed the kitchen on his way in, and saw Mrs. Nurse taking care of herself with some sangria, but he doesn’t say that. “So, uh, what do you tell people you’re like, interested in?” he asks instead.

Shitty laughs, but Nursey only grins. “That I’ve been taking care of her and the house since my mom died,” he says.

Before Dex can respond, he feels a tap on his shoulder, and turns to see Andy looking at him exasperatedly with her arms crossed. Shit, he’d fucking forgotten about her, because he’s a terrible -- a terrible father. Or something. Goddamn.

“Oh, um, this is Andy,” he says. “My daughter?”

“You don’t sound sure,” Shitty says.

“I’m not.”

Andy glares from beneath her bangs, but says nothing, and Dex just doesn’t know what to do so he stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks wide-eyed at Shitty.

“You old enough to drink, Andy?” Shitty asks.

“I’m 47,” she says.

“You’re barely 18,” Dex says, because it’s one of the few pieces of information he’s managed to glean from her, but she’s already following Shitty into the kitchen, presumably for some alcohol or -- whatever Shitty’s got in his cup. A strange sense of relief surges through him but he does his best to ignore it, and instead turns to Nursey, who’s looking concerned and amused and fond all at once, which is more emotion than Dex knows how to deal with on a good day. “She’s barely 18,” he repeats faintly.

“You alright? You don’t look so good,” Nursey says.

Caitlin and Holster start yelling at the TV just as Bitty appears in Dex’s line of vision, barreling towards them with his one fist clenched tight and the other hand’s index finger pointing at them.

“You two,” he says, walking right up to them and poking them each on the chest. He huffs like a bull. “You two! I have some words for you!”

“Oh really?” Nursey says. He brings his hands to his heart and Dex snorts. “I love words.”

“Your mother, whom I did not know was coming, just told me you’re both _vegan_ \--”

“Did I forget to tell you that? Sorry.”

Dex doesn’t think Nursey looks sorry at all.

“-- and your _milkman_ , who was also not invited --”

“My _what_?”

“-- just told me she doesn’t believe in gluten. What am I supposed to do with that!”

Bitty’s breathing hard, red-faced and wild-eyed, and Dex feels the need to drop his gaze like a scared kitten.

“Um, Bitty?” Chowder’s voice comes from the kitchen, high-pitched and tremulous. “We have a problem. Another one, I mean.”

“She ate pizza at lunch,” Dex says, nearly a whisper, and something strangled and primal rips itself from Bitty’s throat.

That’s when the fire alarm goes off.

_X_

In the years to come, Eric will wonder how Thanksgiving 2016 became such a disaster in such a short period of time. Shitty will shrug for the hundredth time and say _the universe, bro_ , like the stoned twenty-two year old fratboy he is in his heart, his mind, and probably his dick too. Dex will roll his eyes and agree, probably, because the universe has always been out to get him, and will continue to fuck with him until the day he dies. Lardo will sigh and point out that the flaw in his meticulously laid out plan was in not insisting on the removal of Louboutins and other shoes at the door, beginning a sequence of actions that ultimately led to Mrs. Nurse tripping over Andy’s dangling shoelace and causing her Hermès scarf to fall into the cranberry sauce simmering on the stovetop and accidentally pressing the broil button in her haste to retrieve it, leading to the pies keeping warm in the oven to catch flame.

But Eric will always wonder.

“You know,” Holster says, setting down the boxes of pizza onto the tables they’ve pushed together in the corner of the Haus once more. “I’m glad we could do this. I’m thankful for this. It’s nice not to be alone on Thanksgiving.”

“Nice,” Eric says desolately, grabbing the greasiest, meatiest slice of pizza he can find, and washing down his first bite with a generous gulp of beer. Beside him, Jack pats his shoulder tentatively and picks out his own slice of all-veg, which makes Bitty smile in spite of himself.

“Me too!” Shitty says. “I was halfway to the airport when I realized like, brah, there are more important things in life than boilermaking.”

“But not many,” Andy says. She’s taken most of the toppings off the pizza and is dipping the crust in the gravy Eric managed to salvage from the kitchen before the firefighters got there. Only that and Jack’s mashed potatoes made it.

Shitty nods solemnly.

“Well,” Chris says, “you can thank Gaby. She gave me the idea.”

“A toast to Gaby!” Nursey says, raising his bottle. “Who’s Gaby?”

“Gaby’s one of my kids,” Holster says, “and she’s nine.”

Nursey winces and lowers his drink. “Oh. Better not, then.”

Eric starts to giggle. And chuckle. And then begins to laugh. And laugh, and laugh, and soon everyone but Mrs. Nurse is laughing, loud and obnoxious in the best, happiest, most smoke-scented way. Even Andy is snickering behind her hand, Dex beaming at her, and Eric’s heart swells even as he makes a mental promise to himself to recommend she invest in slip-on shoes.

“Alright, alright,” Nursey says when the laughter has died down, “to the Haus! And to Samwell Gentlemen’s Hockey!”

They scoot their chairs closer to clink their bottles together, and stay there, tight-knit and banging into each other’s legs under the table, once they’re done the toast.

Eric feels kind of thankful too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tune in ~~next week~~ at an undetermined date and time for another episode of bad jokes, overdone tropes and possibly the answers to some questions. Who knows? Certainly not I.
> 
> Find me at [fatlardo](http://www.fatlardo.tumblr.com).


	4. The Parent Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where did Andy come from? Why is Shitty wearing a suit after work hours? Is Jack doing alright? All these questions and very few answers in this first episode of a two-episode arc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS EPISODE BROUGHT TO YOU BY: A month-and-a-bit-long bout of laziness, the fact that I watched a couple episodes of Hoarders while on break and went into a (very) brief period of super productivity, and [dadbob](http://www.dadbob.tumblr.com), as always.
> 
> If anyone doesn't like thinking too much about unplanned pregnancy, I've got a short summary of what's going on in the end notes, plus I'll tell you when to start and stop.

Jack Zimmermann is many things: a professor, for one, and a hockey player ( _ex_ hockey player, maybe more accurately), a coach, a community volunteer, a patient to his therapist, a friend to Shitty and Lardo and Dex and Ransom and Holster and _Bittle_ , a tenant in his (fully paid-for) condominium, the owner of 13 fish in a well-cared-for tank, a son. A son, and possibly more importantly, he’s a goddamn adult. He shouldn’t be afraid of anything, least of all _this_.

“Your parents are coming?” Shitty asks, and looks wildly around at his own condo, down at the Daisy Duke-length shorts he’s got on, at the beer in one hand, his vape in the other, then back up at Jack, eyes wild. “And you’re just telling me this _now_? I have to change. I have to clean. I have to _move_.”

Jack frowns at his beer. On TV the Bruins are soundly beating the Canes, and Jack tries to focus on something else. “Shits, they’re only coming tomorrow.”

“For how long?” Shitty’s voice sounds strangled.

“Um. Until the 2nd. Yeah. Their flight comes in at nine.”

“Oh my god,” Shitty says. He jumps up, twirls around on himself, then sits down again. “I didn’t get them a gift yet. Do they need someone to pick them up at the airport? I volunteer.”

“I’m going,” Jack says, and Shitty visibly deflates. It’s disconcerting. “Um, Shits? Why are _you_ nervous? They’re _my_ parents.”

Jack is the one who’s afraid, which is embarrassing, but it’s the truth. Objectively, he knows his parents love him and support him and aren’t disappointed in him, but… Well. He’s working on it.

Shitty makes a noise like a strangled half-laugh. “Nervous? Me? You know I don’t get nervous. No, no. I’m not nervous.”

“Then what _are_ you?”

“Hopeful,” Shitty says.

“Hopeful?”

Shitty nods earnestly. “I think this might be the year Bob and Alicia finally adopt me.”

**_X_**

The Haus is packed tonight -- it always is, this time of year, when people who have left Samwell come back home for the holidays, and they remember the old pub on the corner of Howell and Elm. Lardo’s even had to take up some bartending duties, because they’re also slightly understaffed. She’s sweaty, running around and pouring drinks and doing the complicated dance behind the bar that bartenders and barbacks know so well, and she feels very, very alive.

Lardo’s got her back turned when she hears a familiar voice say “three fingers of your best scotch, neat,” and rolls her eyes as she pours an orange juice with grenadine instead.

“Does Dex know you’re here?” Lardo asks, and Andy takes a drink without protest. After a moment she shrugs, which Lardo takes to mean he doesn’t. “Alright. I’m just going to call him.”

Lardo calculates quickly in her head, tapping her fingers on the permanently sticky bartop. The Bruins game should be ending soon, which means the bar will clear out, and one of her waitresses will be able to take over the bar in about --

“Half an hour,” she says. “Go wait in my office and I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Andy frowns and ducks her head, stirring her drink with a mini paper umbrella. Her shoulders slump.

“What?” Lardo says, gentler this time. “I assume you’re here because you want to talk, or something.”

“I hate talking,” Andy mumbles, barely audible over the din of the bar. “Talking’s stupid.”

Lardo sighs and waves her hand in the direction of her office door, off to the right side of the bar, through the store room.

“Yeah,” she says, once Andy has slinked off, but not after flipping off Lardo with a wink, “definitely Dex’s daughter.”

**_X_**

“Shits, you’re 42 years old.”

“What are you saying, Jack? That I’m too old to _dream_?”

_X_

Lardo’s finally able to slip into her office nearly an hour later, and brings a basket of chips and another drink for Andy as a peace offering. The whole situation is frankly a bit surreal -- Andy is, for all intents and purposes, still a stranger, though she’s been living with Dex for nearly a month now. He’s no closer to finding out anything much about her, and of course neither is Lardo. Lardo and Shits aren’t even that close with Dex, they mostly know him through Jack -- so this is more than a little confusing.

“Okay,” she says, closing the door with her hip and looking up to see Andy in her rolling chair, turning towards her slowly with her fingers steepled, “Dex says you’re not allowed to take his truck again until you get your driver’s license and he can put you on his insurance policy. So I’ll drive you home after whatever this is. Cool?”

Andy grunts and grabs at the basket of chips while Lardo sits with a huff in the chair opposite.

“Mm. I’ve been really -- you know Dex doesn’t eat vegetables like this?” Andy says through a mouthful of chips.

“Potatoes don’t count as vegetables.”

“They’re from the ground,” Andy says. She slurps her orange juice and it’s loud in the small space. The walls around them are plastered with old calendars and neon signs for beer they don’t sell and promotional pennants sent by Budweiser and art pieces she either hasn’t gotten around to putting up in the bar yet or never will, but the desk is neat -- a page-a-day calendar from Shitty with quotes about mindfulness and peace, a stack of folders with time sheets and financial reports and inventory lists, a cactus, her work laptop, some pens, the daily planner Jack got her for her birthday last year, which is nearly full now. And Andy, in her baggy black sweater and ripped jeans and dark eyeliner and lipstick the colour of dried blood, looks distinctly uncomfortable in the space as she finishes off the chips and sets to tapping her fingers (with nails painted black) on the arm of the chair in a chaotic, unstructured rhythm.

“Andy, what are you doing here?” Lardo says.

“Um.” Andy spins around in the chair and tilts her head back to look at the ceiling for at least a minute.

“Are you okay,” Lardo asks, carefully. The walls are thin and she can hear her cooks chattering through them. The clink-clink of glasses and cutlery, someone laughing in the bar.

“You have a couple apartments upstairs, right? I need a place to live,” Andy says. Abrupt, but quiet, without a trace of irony left in her tone.

Lardo blinks at her. “You just moved in with Dex a month ago. And you don’t even have a job.”

“Then I need one of those too.”

There’s something about the way Andy’s hunched in on herself, holding her arms around her waist, looking down. Her bangs cover her eyes. Yeah, something.

“Andy,” Lardo says, trying for gentle, sitting forward a bit, her hands splayed open. “Is Dex --”

“No! No, he’s been good. It’s alright.”

“Then before, where you came from, did--”

“ _No_ ,” Andy says. Forceful. “Not. Not like that.” The chair turns again, and this time stays facing the wall, and Lardo ignores her phone lighting up in her hand with a text from Dex asking if everything is alright. She turns it on airplane mode.

“Then what is it? I know you say things like you want to drown a man in chocolate pudding, but you didn’t actually, like--” And then it clicks. Lardo’s mouth drops open. “Oh. You’re--”

“Possessed by a demon, yeah.”

“So your family--”

“Exorcised the demon from their home, mhm.”

“And you need--”

“A permanent place that has no holy water around for the foreseeable future.”

“What are you going to do about--”

“For now the demon and I are coexisting peacefully but I don’t think I want to keep it around forever. Maybe, uh, maybe someone else has a house that would appreciate a haunting more than me.”

“And you think Dex…”

Andy says nothing.

“Andy. I know Dex can be a little, uh, rough around the edges, but he’s a good guy. He took you in, didn’t he? He’ll help you with your, your demon.”

Finally, Andy turns to face Lardo, and looks her straight in the eye.

“Why would he? He barely knows me. I’m just some kid who showed up on his doorstep. Neither of us knew the other existed until a month ago. I dropped out of high school and tracked him down because I had nowhere else to go, not because I wanted to like, reconnect with my father or anything. I’ve already started showing, and what happens when Dex notices?”

“Talk to him. He’ll help you figure everything out.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Then we’ll find somewhere for you to live. But I promise you, it’ll work out.”

**_X_**

The condo’s been cleaned -- and cleaned, and cleaned, and cleaned again. There is a specially curated set of coffee table books out in the living room -- The History of Golf, Outdoor Living with Grace, Star Trek Costumes: Five Decades of Fashion from the Final Frontier, and one simply entitled Dogs -- and four different kinds of craft beer and three whiskeys in the fridge. There’s flowers on the dining room table, happily chosen by Bittle, and a pie ready to be reheated, graciously baked by Bittle. And Jack, standing in the centre, vacuum in one hand and phone in the other, staring at a text that reads _Jack -- Flight delayed two hours. See you at 11. Mom xx :-)_. There’s another, from earlier: _Thanks for inviting us over tomorrow! What should we bring? My mom is going to be so excited when I tell her. EB._ Jack flits between the two over and over, unsure why his heart feels like it’s going to jump out his chest and into the bowl of plastic pears on the glass-top coffee table.

No. It’s fine, of course it’s fine. Well, he’s almost run out of battery because he’s been staring at the texts for so long, but he’s fine. Sure, this wasn’t scheduled, and he’ll have to go to bed later than planned, and Jack doesn’t like when things don’t go as planned, but it’s fine. And Shitty will be disappointed, but. Fine. Jack should be leaving for the airport right about now, but instead he’s standing in his living room with a Dyson and the temptation to call his therapist and vent about weather patterns but. He’s _fine_. He’s a grown-ass man who can be flexible and adaptive and fine. Right?

Bittle can’t help him now.

Shitty can though, so he carefully places his vacuum back into his porch closet and walks across the corridor to Shitty’s condo.

**_X_**

“One of these days, Jack, one of these days,” Shitty says. “You’ll see, it’ll help you relax like you wouldn’t believe. Right, Dex?”

Next to Lardo on the couch, Dex snorts and looks up at the ceiling. “Jack wouldn’t know how to relax if it hit him in the face. And that’s coming from me.”

“That makes no sense, Billy, my man,” Shitty says. He’s wearing a suit, for some reason. Lardo’s learned, in fifteen years of being together, that it’s usually best not to ask, but she thinks it might have something to do with Bad Bob and Alicia’s imminent arrival.

Secretly, Lardo agrees with him -- a little something special would probably do Jack a lot of good -- but she says nothing about it. Instead, she pokes Dex in the thigh with her toes. He’d shown up not long before Jack, twisting his hands together and ranting about the high cost of eyeliner (he’d apparently bought something for Andy as a -- show of support, or something) and abysmal sexual education in high schools. Two topics Shitty was more than grateful to latch onto as he immediately ushered Dex into the condo and handed over his pipe, until Jack arrived, which took precedence over every other emergency.

“So she talked to you,” Lardo says. Jack and Shitty are sitting at the kitchen table talking in low tones.

Dex nods, looking utterly miserable. “In her way,” he says. “She said the words ‘blood-sucking parasite’ a lot.”

“Hm. So what are you going to do?”

He shrugs. “For now, just book some doctor’s appointments, and, well, I spoke to Nursey --”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

His mouth opens once, twice, then he frowns down at his hands, calloused and freckled. Behind them, Jack chuckles quietly at something Shitty’s said, and Shitty bangs his fist on the table -- sounds Lardo’s grown as accustomed to as the chaos of the Haus. “I ran into him at Whole Foods, and he like, knows a lot about adoption agencies for some reason, so he’s going to help. I guess,” Dex says.

“First of all,” Lardo says, “I can’t believe _you_ went to Whole Foods.”

“Ah, fuck. Would you think it’s more realistic if I had said I ran into him at the hardware store?”

“No, because Nursey wouldn’t know a hardware store if it hit him in the face.”

Dex grunts. “She’s having a baby. An actual, honest-to-god child. He helped me find healthy stuff too.”

“Really.”

“Like, asparagus and ground turkey and shit. Turmeric. Low-sodium veggie broth.”

“Wow. Did you get quinoa?”

“ _Fuck_ no. A man’s gotta know where to draw the line.”

“Truer words,” Lardo says. “But how are _you_ taking the news?”

“I -- well -- it’s like that story where the guy wakes up as a giant cockroach and realizes eventually he just has to go on and live life instead of lying there wondering why he’s a cockroach.”

She squints at him, because she’s pretty sure that’s not how it goes or that Dex ever read anything like that. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with him.”

“Nursey?”

“No, Kafka.”

“Who’s that? Anyway, it was just one trip to the grocery store. And a makeup shop. And Target. And then he dragged me to that place, uh, the library? Hey, did you know you can just like, borrow books? For free?”

“I can’t believe you just used your ignorance in regards to public libraries to change the subject.”

“You can just look anything up!”

“Wait until you hear about the internet.”

He rolls his eyes and flicks her on the knee. “I know how to use the internet. Where do you think I order replacement light bulbs in bulk for the big light fixtures in the arena? What, do you think I can just go to any industrial lighting store and get them? Ridiculous. And anyway, you have to pay for the internet.”

“Not at the library.” She snorts when Dex lets out a long, impressed whistle.

“He’s coming to practice?!” yells Shitty from the kitchen, and then a bang sounds out, which is, yep, the chair clattering to the ground after he stood too quickly. He runs his hands nervously over his lapel. “Dex, I need you to clean the rink from top to bottom until it’s fucking sparkling. _The_ Bad Bob Zimmermann is coming to play with us next week. Actually, is it possible to get a new arena? Ours is looking kinda rough.”

Time to end this before Shitty loses it, Lardo decides. “Come on, Poindexter,” she says, standing and tapping Dex’s shoulder, “Shits and I are going to the Haus for a drink. You can come too.”

“We are?”

“And Jack, you need to get going, because I know you’ll feel better if you get there early,” she says.

“I will?”

She ushers them out of the condo before they can question her further, and wonders how she got to this point: taking care of a team full of grown men and a bar and a teenage runaway all at the same time. She finds she doesn’t really mind.

**_X_**

Jack does get there early, and feels his nerves settle as he finds a spot near the baggage claim after getting some herbal tea from Starbucks and a Vanity Fair from a kiosk in the airport, because he likes being up to date with his mother’s interests. As he reads he takes notes on possible conversation starters in the notebook he carries with him everywhere, and goes through the list in his head in case he needs it on the fly. He’s prepared, and actually fine now. Thank god for Shitty and Lardo.

His parents’ flight isn’t the only one that’s been delayed, and there’s more people than usual standing around, waiting for their loved ones to come home for the holidays. It had been snowing when Jack drove over, and Samwell had been all lit up with mini coloured lights and wreaths as he left it behind to get to Logan International.

Finally, the loudspeaker announces the YUL to BOS Westjet flight’s arrival, so Jack carefully puts his things in his bag and stands to better see his parents. Soon, maybe too soon, he spots his mother and his father pushing their way through the crowd, waving at him. He lifts his hand in return.

“Jack!” his mother calls out.

“Mom,” he says.

“Jack?” says a familiar voice behind him. He turns to see Bittle, smiling wide, with two people next to him who must be his parents.

“Bittle.”

“Dicky!” Bittle’s mom cries, staring wide-eyed at Bob Zimmermann coming towards her.

“Dicky?” Jack says. He feels like laughing.

“Jack,” Bob says, once he gets close. They hug -- Jack doesn’t feel awkward at all.

“P’pa.”

“Mama,” Bittle hisses. She’s still gaping.

“Suzanne…”

“Bad Bob,” Susan Bittle whispers, starry-eyed.

“Alicia Zimmermann?” says her husband.

“Coach!” Bittle says, slapping his father’s arm lightly.

Jack hold up his hands, smiling. He’s surprised that he’s smiling. It feels good. _He_ feels good.

“Jack?” his mom says.

“Mom, Papa, this is--”

“ _Eric?_ ”

It’s a new voice. Unfamiliar. A man’s, maybe Jack’s age or a bit younger, tall, skinny and dark-haired in a fitted navy coat with a striped scarf wrapped around his neck, his mouth wide open, staring. He’s got thick-rimmed black glasses and a suitcase in hand.

Bittle squeaks, Suzanne gasps, and Coach growls.

“Eric,” the man says again, softer this time, and Jack watches as Bittle transforms before his eyes: shoulders square, eyes hard, jaw set, neck held high. Jack takes an involuntary step backwards and pulls his jacket tighter. It’s cold all of a sudden.

“Chad."

“I think,” Coach says, “I’m going to need a drink.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the content warnings: An 18-year-old is pregnant and has been kicked out of her house because of it. She isn't homeless. If that sounds like something you don't want to read, skip the fourth scene.
> 
> \--
> 
> If anyone remembers the last episode where Shitty offers Andy a drink, rest assured that she did not actually take one. She's an asshole, but she wouldn't endanger her unborn child like that. Anyway, the kitchen caught fire before that could have happened.
> 
> Find me on [fatlardo](http://www.fatlardo.tumblr.com), and if you really liked this, why not reblog [this post](http://fatlardo.tumblr.com/post/155552687791/samwell-gentlemens-hockey-where-did-andy-come) to share with your friends?


	5. The One With The Bathroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are all happening very much, and a lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, like Jesus, have also risen from the dead after a truly inappropriate amount of time. Woopsy daisy!!
> 
> Alicia Conner-Zimmermann is named after the Alicia Conner (née O'Connell) in [this universe.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964921) Go read it! It's basically Bob/Alicia canon. Thanks G for writing it!

Jack makes his way to the bar immediately upon entering, leaving his parents to find a table and wait for the Bittles. The Bittles, who are coming to the Haus. The Haus where the Zimmermanns are, waiting for the Bittles. To come see them, at the Haus. Where Jack also is. Because the Bittles are coming to see the Zimmermanns, who are waiting. At the Haus.

It’s fine.

“Shitty,” Jack whispers. Shitty is sitting at the very edge of the bartop, his sports jacket discarded next to his arm, and three empty bottles of beer before him to complement the one in his hand.

“Jack! My love! I feel like I haven’t seen you in over a year!” He leans over and nuzzles his mustache into Jack’s cheek. Jack lets him.

“I saw you earlier,” says Jack. “Are you drunk?”

Lardo pops up from behind the bar like a whack-a-mole and rolls her eyes.

“He got nervous,” she says, “and drank. What are you doing here?”

“Nervous?”

“Because of -- oh, no. Shitty, don’t look now, but --”

“Mister Bad Zimmermann Bobby, sir!” Shitty yells, right into Jack’s ear, and in his haste to stand and presumably shake Jack’s father’s hand, he throws out his arm and clips it on the edge of the bartop, causing him to fall onto Jack’s lap, who can do nothing but take the assault, on account of his body seems to have become paralyzed upon his seeing the Bittles walk into the place.

Mr Bittle has his hands deep in his pocket and looks to be muttering to himself, and Mrs Bittle has her arm around Bittle, the young one, who is gesturing wildly, and who ignores Jack and the man in his lap. After the introductions in the airport, things got -- uncomfortable. The stranger, Chad, had taken Bittle aside by the payphone near the baggage pick-up, and what had seemed like a civil if tense conversation quickly turned into a shouting match that had made everyone turn and stare. Jack could have dealt with that just fine; they weren’t staring at _him_. Until someone had noticed The Bad Bob Zimmermann and The Alicia Conner-Zimmermann even in their quite advanced age, and then someone else had noticed, and then… well, then they drove from Boston straight to the Haus. Possibly. Jack may have blacked out for a minute or two. He thinks his father drove them here. He can’t really remember.

Jack shoves Shitty off his lap and into his father’s arms, and goes to the bathroom to catch his breath. Things are all happening very much, and a lot.

He stares at himself in the mirror taking deep breaths, and eventually the noise of the bar seems distant through the wall. The buzz of the fluorescent light above is almost comforting in contrast: something to concentrate on, something familiar, like the noise the industrial bulbs in the arena make when you first turn them on in the morning, turning on one by one, waking up the place slowly, shining on the smooth new ice.

A knock on the door startles him, and he hears Bittles voice say his name.

“Jack? You alright in there? It’s been twenty minutes,” he says, muffled.

“Um. Yes. One second,” says Jack, and takes one last moment to nod at the mirror and go to open the door. Bittle is looking up at him with eyes wide and framed by laugh lines -- though Jack knows better than to comment on Bittle’s wrinkles or grey hair by now -- and a frown.

“Can I come in?”

“It’s a bathroom,” Jack says, “so I don’t think you need an invitation.”

“No, I mean -- can I talk to you? It’s quieter in here.”

Jack’s heart speeds up again.

“Uh. Okay. Yes.”

Bittle steps in and closes the door behind him, then locks it, then sighs. Jack doesn’t know how to interpret the look on his face, though that’s not really a cause for concern, because Jack never knows how to do that. Shitty says it’s charming.

“Are you alright?” is the first thing Bittle asks.

“Me? Why?” Jack says.

“Well, sure, I mean, when we were in that airport you looked like you were ready to throw up whatever chicken and asparagus dish you made yourself for supper, and then I got here and you disappeared, and I just want to know if I did something to -- I don’t know, offend you, or, I mean, I know the mob of people who got to your parents probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all if it weren’t for me and _Chad_ \--”

“Chad,” Jack says. “The man you were -- having a disagreement with.”

“That’s a polite way to say it. He’s my ex,” Bittle says.

“Boyfriend?” Jack says.

Bittle grunts. “Fiancé. I’d rather not talk about him, if that’s alright.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“It’s just -- God, I moved here to get away from him, you know? Atlanta isn’t big enough that I wasn’t running into him every few days, especially because obviously we liked the same places, you know, and I like doing my grocery shopping without being afraid the man who left me to get closer to God or whatever the heck bullshit fucking reason he gave me was just around the corner judging my spaghetti squash purchases, and how was I supposed to know his sister moved to Boston and his extremely large extremely overbearing family was spending Christmas here with them? Tell me Jack, how was I supposed to know that?”

“I -- I don’t know.”

“It’s unfair! And then he has the gall to take the same flight as my parents, in first class mind you, so they didn’t see him, and then when he ambushes me in the baggage claim he accuses me of coming here to avoid him!”

“You just said you were.”

“But he doesn’t need to know that!”

“I’m confused,” Jack says.

“I’m sorry,” Bittle says. “It’s complicated. I don’t want to talk about him.”

Jack frowns. “That’s -- understandable.”

“He’s just ridiculous. Ridiculous! Before he left, do you want to know what he said to me?”

“Okay,” Jack says. He steps away from Bittle’s flailing arms.

“May God bless your heart! Can you believe that!”

“I -- no? Yes? Wait, why is that a bad thing?”

“Why is that a -- no, you know what, I’m done talking about him. No more. I’m done! How are you?” He goes to the mirror and splashes some water on his very red face, and adjusts his hair, before turning back to Jack, who is now leaning against the cold tile wall next to the toilet.

“I’m -- fine, now. It’s just -- plans. Didn’t go as -- planned. You know?”

“Well!” Bittle claps his hands together and smiles. “I planned to get married. But that’s just life, huh? That’s just life, and then you die. Now come out with the rest of us. I think Shitty’s showing your parents a powerpoint presentation on his phone about why they should adopt him, and I’m pretty sure I saw my mother take out some baby pictures to show Lardo and I really wanna nip that in the bud before they get plastered onto the wall behind the bar so let’s go, huh?” Then he takes Jack’s arm and pulls him out into the Haus and Jack -- Jack follows him.

_X_

Dex’s apartment is a mess. He’s lived here nearly ten years, and he’s accumulated stuff, sure, but this is something else: boxes and bags everywhere, groceries he hasn’t put away yet, Ikea furniture he hasn’t had the time to put together, clothes hanging up on a makeshift clothesline he’d strung up across the living room, and somewhere in all the mess, Andy and Nursey are -- laughing together over the sound of the TV which is also louder than Dex has ever had it go. At least, it sounds like laughing. He’s never heard Andy laugh before. It could just be like, a clever recording on that phone of hers.

He really should find out who’s paying her phone bill. Christ, just add that to the list of things he has to do, like it’s not long enough already.

Amongst all the new purchases, there are no baby clothes, or a crib, or a carseat, or diapers, or baby food. Dex is kind of glad. There’d be nowhere to put any of that, or a -- a baby.

He’s surveying the scene from his kitchen, which opens up into the living room, when his oven dings, and he goes to pull out the fries and vegan wings Nursey made him buy, though at first Dex thought Nursey was fucking with him, because vegan wings? Come the fuck on.

“Food’s ready!” he yells over the noise, and Nursey’s head pops up from behind the couch.

“Don’t gotta be so loud, William,” he says, and winks. He stands and the TV volume lowers like magic, or like Andy, still hidden, has the remote. “Let me help you.”

They put the food on plates in silence, bumping into each other to get glasses and such, because Nursey’s only been around a few days, but he took over Dex and Andy’s life pretty quickly, much to Dex’s relief. He’s still annoying, and pretentious, and vegan, sure, but he’s been helpful.

“Thanks,” Dex says before Nursey goes to bring out Andy’s plate. “For like, all this. I wouldn’t have known what to do so -- anyway.”

“It’s fine,” Nursey says. When he smiles his eyes kind of disappear into his cheeks and it’s -- nice. Whatever. “I don’t mind helping out. And -- I’ve already contacted a few adoption agencies, it’s a little late with her being due in three months and all, but I have a few good leads, so…”

“Three months,” Dex says. They don’t actually know her due date for sure but the doctors they’d seen seem convinced that she’s about six months along, which is incredible, because she’s barely showing. But Ransom said some people just don’t show much, and it’s perfectly healthy, and she’s perfectly healthy, and so is the baby, and also, he said, Dex needs to relax. He’s said that before, and so has everyone else Dex has come into contact with his entire life except maybe Jack, but now Dex really needs to relax. Even though it’s the last thing he wants to do.

Nursey pats him on the shoulder with his free hand.

“Now all we gotta do is make sure she doesn’t go into labour during the hockey tournament, right?”

Dex drops his plate onto the counter and stares. Well, fuck. He’s never going to relax now.

_X_

Jack doesn’t follow Bittle for long, because as soon as they’re out of the bathroom, Shitty collides with them, takes Jack’s other arm, apologizes to Bittle, and pulls Jack back into the bathroom. Thank God it’s a single.

“What, Shitty? You’re drunk,” Jack says. “You have a bar peanut stuck in your mustache.”

“And you, my possibly future brother, are freaking out,” Shitty says. He hops up onto the counter and sits, looking at Jack with intent. The peanut seems really lodged in there. It doesn’t even so much as jostle.

“I’m not,” Jack says. “I’m fine. I told Bittle I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine?”

“Wanna tell me what’s going on?” Shitty rests his elbows on his knees and his chin in his palms.

“I thought you were -- my parents. I thought you were talking to my parents,” says Jack.

“What, and you thought I was too busy to notice my beautiful bosom bro disappear like that? I have, the back of my head, eyes -- everywhere, just eyes, watching you, at all times.”

“That’s -- that’s terrifying.”

“Jack, my love, my liege, my little liar liar pants on fire. You are not fine. There’s something up. You don’t think I know when there’s something up?” The peanut hasn’t moved yet.

“There’s nothing up,” Jack says. “Yes, there was something up when the flight was delayed and there was the -- people, and the Chad, but it’s all -- not up now. Nothing’s up. Everything’s -- down. Things are down. Not up, just down. I’m down.”

“Alright. Then tell me why it still looks like you’re about to throw up.”

“I’m just tired. It’s past my bedtime.”

“You knew you’d be up late.”

“Christmas is emotionally taxing.”

“You’re Jewish.”

“I think I left my oven on.”

“You always check your oven three times before you leave.”

“I ate bad shrimp for supper.”

“It’s chicken and asparagus night, Jack, I know when it’s chicken and asparagus night.”

“I have a gastrointestinal virus.”

“A-HA!” Shitty jumps off the counter and throws out his arms, narrowly missing Jack’s nose, then shakes himself.

“What? I’m -- experiencing uncomfortable flatulence, that’s hardly a--”

“You like Bitty! You do! And you were nervous about meeting his parents because you haven’t told him yet, and then when you saw him arguing with his ex-fiancé at the airport you panicked because you had your first meeting with the Bittles planned out and it didn’t happen the way you wanted it to, and also, you’re afraid you’re not Bittle’s type because that man wasn’t anything like you and, despite the fact that you look like the statue of a Roman god you might see in a museum but with hopefully a bigger dick, or not, I don’t know, I’m not judging, I’ve never seen your hog, you have serious self-esteem issues stemming from past failed relationships and growing up in your father’s shadow and feeling like you failed your destiny when you had a nervous breakdown and had to leave the NHL!”

Jack falls back onto the lid of the toilet seat and covers his face with his hands. When he peeks again it seems Shitty has found the mustache peanut and is munching on it, face thoughtful. “You got all that from -- from me hiding out in the bathroom for a little while?”

“Oh, no, Lardo told me before I came in here.”

“Then why the -- how did -- you know what, no, nevermind. I do not like Bittle. I’m a grown man. Not -- an adolescent.”

Shitty pokes Jack in the chest. “Jack and Bitty, sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”

“Shitty, I do not -- did you just make that up on the spot? That rhymed and everything.”

“What can I say, I’m a poet. Hey, what do you think you’re going to do about Bitty?”

“Nothing, because there’s nothing to be done, because I don’t like Bittle.”

“Okay, so you love him, whatever, semantics. What are you going to do?”

Someone knocks on the door, and this time Jack hears his mother’s voice.

“Jack? Are you in there?”

Jack shakes his right index finger and jabs it at Shitty. “Not a word,” he says, and goes to open the door.

“Jack!” Alicia says. Some long grey strands of hair have fallen from her usually tightly rolled bun but she still looks as prim and proper as she always does when she’s out in public like this, even just getting off a plane.

“Do you want to speak to me too?” Jack says. “Should I set up a couch?” He’s tired. He wants to go home. He wants this day to be over.

“Oh, sweetheart, I always want to speak to you,” Alicia says, then pushes past him, still spry for someone well into her seventies by now. “But right now I just really need to fucking piss.”

_X_

Nursey leaves after they’re done eating and Dex tries to tidy up the place while Andy takes a bath -- she prefers them to showers because she says her feet hurt all the time now, and she’d like to cut them off and replace them with pegs and maybe start wearing an eyepatch. Dex is pretty sure she was joking. He’s learning to speak her language, but it’s a slow and confusing process. Nursey seems to get her just fine, and so does Lardo, Dex supposes, but whatever. It’s not like he doesn’t have time to figure her out.

She’s singing something under her breath when she comes out of the bathroom in some new flannel pyjamas Dex bought at Winners for her. They’re red with white polka dots on them. Matching top and bottom. She said she hated them, but she’s worn them every night since he got them a week ago, and has already washed them twice.

He only sees her without makeup at night, after her baths, though the first time she’d covered her face with her hands and hissed at him -- really and truly hissed, like a snake. But now she's stopped bothering. She has freckles under her makeup, and her eyelashes are so pale they’re barely visible. Maybe she does look like him, a bit. Dex doesn’t know how he feels about that.

She comes to the kitchen for a glass of water before going off to the bedroom he’s set up for her in his old office while he’s finishing up the dishes, and she’s still humming.

“You have a nice voice,” he says. “I don’t think that came from me.”

“It came from a mermaid I bribed with a set of human legs,” she says, and leans across him to grab a glass from the cupboard and turn the tap on.

“Hey Andy,” he says once she finishes filling her glass. Her wet hair is stringy and dark but some lighter roots are starting to show.

“Andy’s not here right now,” she says. “Can I take a message?”

Dex shrugs and elbows her gently in the ribs, and she sticks her tongue out at him.

“Just tell her -- tell her I think things are going to be alright.”

_X_

Jack gets his parents home eventually, after they’ve had a few more rounds of drinks and so have the Bittles and Shitty and Lardo, and Bittle has given Jack a thoroughly confusing hug goodbye. Either way, everyone is settled in for the night, and Jack has fed his fish, and now he’s just laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, despite the late -- early -- hour, and the truly exhausting day he’s had.

He can’t sleep, clearly. Everything that happened today is playing over and over in his mind, like when he used to play professional hockey and he’d watch so much tape that when he closed his eyes at night all he saw was more plays. So he sighs, and gets up, and goes to get some tea which sometimes helps when he gets like this, but instead of making his way to the kitchen it’s like his feet decide where to go on their own, and he finds himself outside in the corridor, barefoot, in front of Shitty and Lardo’s door.

He knocks.

He barely waits five seconds before it opens and sees Shitty, naked as the day he was born, standing there with a too-wide and just-this-side-of-smug smile.

"I've been waiting for you," Shitty says. He opens his arms wide.

“Shitty,” Jack says, “what am I going to do?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [blog is here. feel free to yell at me](https://bluegrasshole.tumblr.com)


End file.
